Evaluation

– Learning in Term 1b

The Big Issue:

Through my investigation of The Big Issue’s history I found that it was launched in 1991, with its
founding members being John Bird and Gordon Roddick – gaining inspiration from a previous
newspaper known as ‘Street News’ while in New York. This idea was then transferred over to the UK,
now to great success – winning many awards with over 200 million copies sold and the vendors
managing to make over £115 million in the last 26 years.

The target audience of The Big Issue tends to cover those in our society who are perceived as more
‘socially aware’. Typically, they are a high-income earner, so perhaps a professional/manager with
experience in higher education such as attending university. This is reaffirmed through the socio-
economic grading systems which suggests 72% of its audience are ABC1 meaning predominantly
professionals.

We then investigated The Big Issue’s use of intertextuality, their constant reference to that of books,
music, radio, TV and film. This can be through the borrowing/transformation of previous many
sources of media, for example a reference to the band ABBA in a cover detailing the events of the
latest general election, as well as borrowing this brings about a deeper meaning to the cover/event,
perhaps a commentary of how it is perceived, e.g. dramatic or comedic.

Finally, we used all of this information we had learned in order to make our own The Big Issue cover.
I gained inspiration from a previous cover that the vendors of the magazine are likened to Jack Bauer
– the hero of the TV series “24”. Instead using the TV series “Breaking Bad” incorporating the iconic
background of the desert and RV and therefore incorporating use of intertextuality. “Breaking Bad”
also suggests the idea of coming from nothing or some sort of ‘rags to riches’ story. I took a picture
of a fellow student, making sure that the picture I took was in a fairly plain background so I could
then later crop out the background and place them within the iconic scene constantly within
Breaking Bad.

Music Videos:

We had gathered that music videos had a vast history, beginning to a smaller degree in the 19th
Century – viewers would look into a Kinetoscope, where one would look into a peep hole with a
moving image that would move along with the music. They first began to gain mass popularity with
the launch of MTV in 1981 with the very first music video being the Buggles – Video Killed the Radio
Star. Videos became a promotional tool for a song, or make a song that may not have been popular,
now become a worldwide sensation due to the creativity of a video.

An example of a classic music video is Michael Jackson’s Thriller. At the time, it was the most
expensive music video to make, being almost a short film for the song, rather than an actual music
video in itself – it included many intertextual references as well as featuring a predominantly black
cast, which even for the 1980’s was still seen to be out of the normal ideas put across.

From our research into music videos, we discovered that there were three main types of music
video: performance, narrative and artistic. A performance video is where there is a vocalist in
multiple settings such as out in the streets or in their bedroom. Next, a narrative video is typically a
conceptual piece - possibly relating to the song with the narrative rooted in the lyrics. Finally, an
artistic video is a series of sequences that do not potentially correlate with the song in any way,
images are manipulated but no consistent story is shown.

We then incorporated all of our findings into making our own music videos using Premiere. I had
decided to produce a narrative music video to Post Malone’s ‘I Fall Apart’. As well as some sort of a
performance aspect as we had a dancer. The narrative went along with the lyrics of song describing
a past relationship where a woman had left her past boyfriend for another man. Some effects were
also incorporated such a slow motion and reversing the video as well as putting the video along with
the music itself, e.g. a huge crash of paper to correlate with the drop of the beat.

The Jungle Book:

The Jungle Book was written by Rudyard Kipling, an English writer born in Bombay, India on the 30th
of December 1865, writing The Jungle Book for one of his two daughters. It was first released in a
serial magazine format and was immensely popular. So much in fact that it was adapted into various
things such as a radio broadcast brought out as an audiobook by the BBC as well as comic books.

The Jungle Book uses the idea of anthropomorphism. This is where certain objects - in this case
animals are given various human attributes such as human emotion, voices etc. adding another
dimension to the animals as well as the storytelling, this is because the use of anthropomorphism
allows a dark storyline or something that is otherwise not portrayed as family friendly become
something that is now suitable for children and family viewing due to the fact that the animals bring
about a softer/friendlier tone.

The Jungle Book is typically known for its Disney adaptations. The 1967 adaptation was described as
an ‘American animated musical comedy adventure’ directed by Wolfgang Reitherman. It was
released in a time of great change, e.g. the civil rights movement. The film was purely for fun with no
other messages and received a positive reception grossing over $205.8 million in total. The 2016
version was produced as a way to reinvent the brand of The Jungle Book, and containing various
messages in comparison to the older adaptation such as reference to the recent refugee crisis. The
production also was a much more considerable amount of money to make, utilising facial
recognition technology to properly place the actors faces onto the animals.

Exploitation was used in The Jungle Book where various comic books, book and films were produced
in order to receive a large income. Many Disney films are very successful and a reason for this may
be down to the high production value put into each of their films. As well as this making, sure that all
of their films are put onto the newest formats, e.g. moving from VHS to DVD. And even releasing
limited editions of past movies in order for fans of the movies to purchase the film multiple times,
such as a director’s cut.